


You + Me = ?

by RoseByAnyOtherName (badxwolfxrising)



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Foster Family, Angst, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Character Development, Complicated Relationships, Doctor Whump, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Foster Care, Foster parents au, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Pete's World, Post-Episode: s04e13 Journey's End, Smut, Whump, self-deprecation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-03-03
Packaged: 2019-03-18 12:11:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13681431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badxwolfxrising/pseuds/RoseByAnyOtherName
Summary: Turns out that achieving "happily ever after" status is a lot harder than either the Metacrisis Doctor or Rose could've ever imagined. Stuck in a domestic doldrums rut and missing the excitement of time and space, both of them are left wanting more but not quite sure what that more could possibly be in a mundane world . Will fostering a troubled teen be the thing that helps them rediscover themselves and find their elusive fairy tale ending? Inspired in part by a prompt from the @timepetalscollective Tumblr.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story contains references to implied domestic violence (not between the Doctor and Rose) and other sensitive content that some readers may find objectionable. Please contact or comment me for questions regarding specific triggers if you have them!

“Rose, sweetheart, stop pacing. You’re going to wear a hole straight through the floor,” the Doctor said gently.

She turned to look at him, started picking at her cuticles, and stopped herself. Still, she continued to pace the square of carpet in front of the door, like a caged animal anxious for their human to return. “Did you just call me sweetheart?”

He blinked, bemused. “...should I not have?”

“I dunno, it just sounds weird, coming from you. The Doctor never...you never used to call me things like that before,” she said, turning back to the door, almost as though by staring at it she could will the buzzer to ring. “Silly nicknames maybe, but not of the sappy romantic variety.”

“I wasn’t half-human before. We weren’t a couple before, not properly anyway,” he said simply, although there was a slight edge in his tone. They certainly lived together as a couple, though it didn’t feel like it at times. “It’s been nearly a year, am I not allowed to refer to my significant other with affectionate terms of endearment?”

She sighed, and sagged against the bookshelf. “No sorry, ‘course you can. It’s not you, I’m just nervous as hell, and I don’t understand how you can be so infuriatingly calm and collected about it all.”

“I had kids of my own, in a past life, so this isn’t my first rodeo,” he said, shrugging. “And I also have a much better poker face than you. Besides, she’s sixteen, she’s basically an adult with training wheels. Kids her age don’t require much supervision, mostly. It’s not like a toddler, where you look away for a few seconds, turn back, and they’re eating the knob off an Aqueous Auxiliary Plasma Shatterer. Not that I would know from personal experience or anything.”

“Shut up,” she said, rolling her eyes. “We’re not a remotely normal or conventional pair, what if we bollocks this up? What if she hates us? And you know the press is going to speculate about why the still unmarried Vitex heiress is fostering a teenage girl with her kinda sorta boyfriend instead of just getting married and having a baby like a normal person. And believe me, you may not need to watch teenagers to make sure they aren’t eating something they shouldn’t be, but there’s plenty of other trouble for them to get into on their own. Ask my mum about all the shit I got into hanging out with Jimmy Stone and his merry band of juvenile delinquents, I’m sure she could bend your ear off with some of those stories.”

“Forget about that no account Jimmy Stone and let the press speculate,” he replied, slipping his arms around her waist and pulling her against him. “It doesn’t change anything. Besides, practically anyone can make a baby, it takes someone special to give a home to someone else’s child and help them work through trauma you had no part in creating. You are infinitely kind and patient, and you’re going to be an absolutely brilliant foster mum. And you know how I feel about marriage, it’s never been off the table. I’ll give you a ring today, if that’s what you really want.”

She chuckled. “If that’s what I really want, eh? I don’t know that either one of us is exactly marriage material. Whatever this is between us now works so well precisely because there’s not really a label for it. Marriage changes things, doesn’t it? The societal expectations are different, the dynamics of the relationship are different. You and I...well, we’re just friends with benefits essentially, aren’t we? The only major differences between things now and the way they were before is sometimes we shag, you don’t have the TARDIS or a second heart, and you’re only half as likely now to answer your bloody mobile.”

He pulled back to look at her. “Tell me you’re not serious. Is that really how you feel about us? That we’re ‘just friends’ who shag? Because I certainly don’t feel that way. I can’t think of any civilization where ‘just friends’ foster children together.”

“The last time you told me you loved me was on that stupid bloody beach. And then other you got in the TARDIS and left without saying a word. That was nearly nine months ago,” she answered, eyebrows raised, lips pursed in a melancholy smile. “They started an office pool at Torchwood, half our friends bet I’d be pregnant by now. I think Jake is low-key annoyed I’m not because he wants to be a godfather in the worst way. But we never talk about stuff like that because we never talk about us, or what we even are or what we want. We just exist together in this space and sometimes it doesn’t even feel real, and sometimes, neither do you.”

“I...I…,” he floundered for an appropriate response, but mercifully was saved by the sound of the door buzzer. Astro, Rose’s excitable bull terrier puppy, came tearing into the living room, barking his own alert that someone was outside.

“Grab him, would you?” she said curtly, unlocking the door.

With a sigh, he scooped the puppy up, saying prayers to Rassilon that he hopefully wouldn’t be urinated on for the umpteenth time. Astro was still young enough that his bladder became weak when he was too excited, which seemed to be at least 70% of the time. Squirrels outside the window were exciting, the dustmen collecting the rubbish was exciting, car chases with sirens on the television were exciting. Bollocks, if they were having issues keeping a dog from pissing on the floor, no wonder Rose had concerns about marriage and children! Perhaps that was why she had been so adamant about being a foster parent. Maybe to her, this was some sort of a test to see how their relationship would withstand the stress of another human being added to the mix, or if it even could survive it at all. They’d had guest companions on the TARDIS from time to time in the past, but historically, it had never ended well. Better with two maybe, but three? That was an unknown variable, so very many things could possibly go awry, even if you discounted the ones that involved Daleks and space stations.

It was only the beginning of March, but he could feel a nervous sweat forming on his brow. When he’d had two hearts and a TARDIS, he’d always envied humans because of how laughably simple and easy their brief lives seemed in comparison to his own as the eternal and unofficial defender of the cosmos. Now that he had only one heart beating in his chest and a wallet with a driver’s license and national insurance card instead of psychic paper and the sonic screwdriver in his pocket, he knew just how wrong that assumption had been. Nothing about his human life with Rose was simple or uncomplicated, and the little exchange they’d had just then only served to prove it. Had he really not uttered those three little words at all in the last nine months? Perhaps not, he’d just assumed she knew how he felt about her, as he always had. For a genius, he really was a sodding idiot sometimes. Turned out he was as good as almost useless without his full telepathic capabilities, although truthfully, having them hadn’t much improved his ability to understand human women. Hundreds of years traveling with them and their thought processes were still as much a mystery to him as they had ever been, though he wasn’t sure if that had more to do with him having always identified as male or him being an alien from a far advanced society with an entirely different and complex system of social cues. He sometimes still got feelings about certain things, but that was more like intuition than actual telepathy and apparently it did even happen to humans sometimes. How had he not picked up on what Rose was feeling sooner? How long had she been feeling this way? His stomach turned to lead at the thought that he’d been inadvertently hurting her all these months. Of course he loved her, perhaps even more than he had his wife and children on Gallifrey, who were now nothing more than stardust and distant memories. So why was he still so reluctant to say it out loud when she’d already made it clear just how important it was for her to hear them?

In front of the door, Rose stood paralyzed, her clenched fist hovering by the handle. She glanced over her shoulder at him, lips trembling and eyes desperately searching for reassurance. He gave her what he hoped was an encouraging smile and mouthed at her, “You’ve got this!” as she gripped the handle and finally swung the door open. On the other side of the frosted glass panel stood the frazzled foster care agent Marilyn, and a sullen, purple-haired girl who appeared as though she’d fallen from the pages of a Black Rose catalog, or perhaps a Jhonen Vasquez comic. Her thin frame was bent under the weight of the world and a tattered old black rucksack, busting at the seams with age and covered in pins, patches, and other punk ephemera. The tilt of her jaw was defiant, but her eyes were tired and wary and the color of the sea before a storm. He swallowed, hard. He didn’t need to be telepathic to know this child had been through something terrible, kids didn’t end up in the system because of happy circumstances. When Rose had gotten the phone call the day previous asking if she’d be willing to take in a teenager who needed emergency placement, they hadn’t given her much information about the child or her circumstances. He hoped they weren’t about to get in over their heads. Kids, even the damaged ones, fell under domestics, and neither one of them seemed to be especially good at domestics. Rose had at least had more practice at it than him, but he still had a mountain of concerns.

The foster agent coaxed the teenager through the door ahead of her, shooting Rose an apologetic look as she did. “Hello Ms. Tyler, sorry we’re late. I had to get special clearance from the police so Prudence could get some of her things from the flat, it’s still considered a crime scene so it was a bit of an ordeal getting them to let us back in.”

“A crime scene? What happened?” he blurted out before he could think to stop himself. Astro oozed out of his arms and tore across the room to inspect the newcomers. From the doorway, Rose raised her eyebrows and shot him a withering look. Bollocks.

The foster agent started to answer, but the girl beat her to it. “My mum got in a fight with her cokehead boyfriend and he beat her to death with a spanner at the breakfast table. He wanted bacon with his eggs and she gave him sausage instead,” she said, bending down to scratch the dog behind his ears.

Rose flinched. “I’m so sorry. Please pardon my boyfriend’s insensitivity, he can be kind of a knob sometimes. It’s almost like he’s from another planet.”

Prudence shrugged. “S’alright. I’m pretty sure she hated me anyway, and the feeling was kinda mutual. Drug addicts aren’t exactly great candidates for parenthood, go figure.”

“Oh goodness,” Marilyn stammered awkwardly. “This isn’t quite the foot I wanted to get off on, but here we are. Ah Prudence, this is Ms. Rose Tyler, and her boyfriend…?”

“The Doc...erm, John. Dr. John Noble,” he supplied sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck. “And sorry for being a knob, this gob works faster than my brain sometimes. Gets me in trouble more frequently than I care to admit.”

Prudence rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I know who the Vitex heiress and her flavor of the week are. I grew up on a council estate, not under a rock.”

“We’ve been together much longer than a week, but I suppose I deserved that,” he muttered. This was already shaping up to be a beautiful disaster. Had he woken up in a parallel universe trapped in an episode of Shameless?

“You’re a doctor?” the foster agent asked, her tone doing nothing to conceal her obvious skepticism. “Do you work in hospital?”

“I’m a clinical psychologist at a private institution, actually. Still technically a doctor, though,” he said dryly. He practiced as one anyway, and it was a lot simpler to tell people that than explain all of the inane subjects he actually did have a PhD in. People already didn’t know what to make of him, no one would ever take him seriously if he told them he had doctorates in cheesemaking and Pythian literature, amongst other things. He’d been sacked from his last cheesemaking job anyhow for making off with a wheel of expensive Irish cheddar. It’d been worth it though, if not for all the delicious toasty cheese sandwiches alone. 

Practicing psychology at Torchwood had actually been Rose’s step-father’s idea-Pete had thought it might help give him perspective and learn more about normal human life by helping Torchwood field agents cope with the residual trauma from the strange and disturbing situations they encountered on the job that tended to bleed into their home lives. It had certainly been a learning experience for him, so many of their problems seemed petty and stupid in comparison to even half the atrocities he’d seen in his life even outside of using the Moment to end his own people. Still, that didn’t help their human brains to cope with their human problems, and so he was kind instead. Even if their human anxieties seemed inconsequential to him, he understood that they still felt painfully real to the people sitting in his office seeking solace. In some ways the petty stuff was easiest to handle, he never had a problem finding the right not-too-trite advice to offer in those simple family or co-worker row scenarios that just needed a third party to point out the blatantly obvious. But situations like what had happened to Prudence, those were the ones he still struggled with. What words do you use to try and fix a broken child who’s seen their own mother violently murdered? He could talk all he wanted about how feelings of grief were valid and healthy, but soothing words couldn’t fill the void left by the person who had brought you into the world, even if your relationship with them had been tenuous or complicated. No one knew that better than himself. More than once, while at his lowest, he’d cursed his mother for bringing him into the world and simultaneously mourned that he’d never see her again to tell it to her face because she was stardust, too, like all of his blood family. The teenager had some hard days ahead of her.

“Do I get my own bedroom?” Prudence asked bluntly, her gaze shifting around the room. “Figure you’ve probably got a pretty big place on account of being rich and all, but it’s hard to tell with flats from the outside.”

“Well of course you get your own room,” Rose said, smiling kindly in spite of the rude tone of the question. “I just put fresh linens in the guest room for you, and you’ve got your own ensuite as well. I put out towels and toiletries, just in case you need them, but if anything is missing just let one of us know and we can get it for you. John or I can take you shopping tomorrow, if you like.”

“Cool,” the girl replied, fingering the expensive silk drapes that had been a gift from Pete’s sister. “So can I go check out my room while Nanny McPhee here fills you in on my tragic backstory? I want to shower and change my clothes, these are starting to get a bit ripe and I think there’s a bit of blood on my one sleeve.”

“Top of the stairs, first door on the left,” Rose answered, the strain in her voice subtle but still perceptible.

Marilyn waited til the bedroom door slammed shut to exhale and give them both an apologetic look. “Well now you know why she’s an emergency placement. Pru has been in and out of the system most of her childhood due to her mother’s substance abuse issues, she really needs some stability in her life. She’s smarter than a whip, but as you can probably imagine, she’s a bit of a difficult child. She’s run away from foster homes several times in the past, and no one who had fostered her previously was willing to take her in again because she tends to get herself into trouble. Normally, we wouldn’t place such a difficult case with a first time foster parent, but her original placement fell through at the last minute, and desperate times call for desperate measures. It’s fortuitous perhaps that you’re a psychologist Dr. Noble, maybe it’ll give you some insight on how to help her process this in a healthy way. I know she’s a good kid at heart, she’s just had such a traumatic upbringing and her mother was...well, neglectful, for lack of a better word. She acts out because she craves attention more than anything, I think. I know she seems aloof, but her mother was the only family she had, her father’s been in prison since she was three for murder and I think this is all hitting her a lot harder than she’s letting on. We’re very thankful you’ve agreed to take her in for the time being, otherwise she would’ve had to go to a group home and those places…well, I don’t think they’re a healthy environment for a kid like Pru.”

“Say no more, I think we get the picture. She’s in good hands,” he said with more confidence than he felt. Talk about getting thrown into the frying pan! “You say she’s smart, I’m sure we can find some constructive ways to keep her occupied and out of trouble. I’m a bit of a tinkerer myself, perhaps I can find a project for us to work on together. Where does she go to school?”

“She’s currently at Acton High School for now, but I doubt it would be practical for her to continue going there if she’ll be living with you two long-term,” the woman replied, sounding tired. “It’s a bit of a hike from here, and honestly, their last several Ofsted ratings have been inadequate. The teachers are okay, but the class sizes are a bit out of control, so there isn’t much room for individual attention.”

He cringed in unison with Rose. “That’s no place at all for a smart kid. I think we could probably afford to send her to Holland Park or Coal Hill instead, they’re certainly closer, and in this neighborhood I expect they’ve probably got the resources for one-on-one if Pru needs it.”

“Right, well here’s a copy of the relevant information from her case file, and my contact information if you have any questions,” she said, jamming an overflowing folder into Rose’s hands. “I wish I could stay, but unfortunately I have other obligations. I can see myself out.”

“Well geeze, thanks for dumping a traumatized teenager on us with almost no information, super helpful,” Rose scoffed sarcastically when the door clicked shut. “What could possibly go wrong?”

He bit his tongue, not wanting be chastised for speaking without impunity again. Rose had That Look down to a science, she didn’t even have to say anything anymore for him to know he’d said something unwittingly insensitive or inappropriate. “So...this might be more of a challenge than we anticipated.”

She huffed, blowing her fringe out of her eyes. “I think that’s putting it mildly. I don’t know if I should hide the knives and vodka or give the kid a hug. What sort of trouble was she getting into that no one was willing to take her back, not even after having her mother murdered?”

“Well, you’d probably have more insight into that than me, I’ve never been a teenage girl growing up in squalor on a council estate making bad decisions,” he said with a shrug.

“Watch it,” she warned, a disapproving frown on her face. “I’m not sure I like what you’re implying.”

“Oh. Oh! No, no, no, I was talking about her, not you-oh,” he said, his face reddening. “Sorry...I really am a knob sometimes.”

Rose flipped open the file and began thumbing through it, looking for more information about their new charge’s sordid past. “Prudence Siobhan Pemberton, born the 24th of April 1996. I’ll be damned, her birthday is three days before mine. That’s a weird coincidence.”

He tried and failed not to giggle. “Prudence Siobhan Pemberton? That’s like the most British name ever! Did her mum go online and use a pompous baby name generator to come up with that?” His smile died, seeing the serious and long-suffering expression on Rose’s face. “Sorry, I’m being rude again, aren’t I?”

She sighed and shut the file. “I don’t know that you ever stopped, John. I’m gonna go sit in my office and read this, if there’s anything pertinent, I’ll be sure to let you know. It’s a nice day, maybe you should take Astro for a walk. He hasn’t been out since this morning.”

He didn’t have time to lodge a protest; by the time he could think of anything to say she’d already disappeared into the little nook under the stairs where she did her reading. He didn’t need a human manual to tell him it probably wasn’t a good sign that she’d referred to him as John rather than Doctor in private, that was probably their own weird equivalent of a parent calling their child by their full name when angry. With a heavy sigh, he grabbed Astro’s lead off the hook by the door and clipped it to the bouncing puppy’s collar. Maybe a walk in the fresh air would do him some good-it might help to clear his afflicted mind. Failing that, he could always “accidentally” trip into the Thames and see just how long he could hold his breath without a fancy Time Lord respiratory bypass system. Some days he wondered if that wouldn’t be for the best. He supposed he’d always been this much of a fuck up, but lacking some of his more interesting and charming Time Lord qualities, it was just that much more obvious how bloody useless he was at, well, everything human apparently.

“At least you’re never disappointed in me,” he whispered, scratching the dog behind his ears. He grabbed his wallet, keys, and the mobile phone he never answered off the end table and grumbled, struggling to fit all three into trouser pockets that were decidedly not transdimensional. There was a chippie just around the corner, perhaps he could redeem himself by picking up something for tea.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Fine,” he said, taking his glasses off and folding them closed before setting them on the nightstand. “Do you love me Rose?”
> 
> She stared back at him as though he’d asked her if she preferred her Slitheen shank slow roasted or grilled. “What?”
> 
> “Do you love me?” he repeated, and the feeling in his chest was like a black hole had opened up somewhere in the vicinity of his stupid single heart. Maybe one had, it wasn’t like he had all the senses to even tell anymore. He’d always had a raging case of impostor syndrome, but it had only gotten worse when he’d grown out of hand from a jar rejuvenated by Donna Noble’s human DNA.

“I’m home,” he called, dropping his keys in the bowl by the door and unhooking Astro from his lead. “And I brought fish and chips.”

Rose appeared in the doorway to the kitchen. “Didn’t you get my text? Pru is vegetarian, she won’t eat fish and chips. I asked if you could pick up curry or something.”

“Oh,” he said, his face falling. “Well, I guess you and I can eat them and we can order delivery for her. No big deal.”

“I’m on a low-carb diet right now,” Rose replied, hands on her hips. 

“Since when?” he asked, resisting the urge to throw his hands up in frustration. Had he just walked back in on the Roast the Doctor Hour? It was beginning to feel that way, he could apparently never do anything nice without bollocksing it up. “And why do you need to be on a diet, you look just fine to me.”

“Since last month,” she said curtly. “I only mentioned it half a dozen times. My blood sugar was a bit high the last time I saw the Torchwood physician, so he started me on a low-carb diet. Potatoes aren’t low-carb. Neither is breaded fried fish. This is why you should check your bloody mobile more often, you could’ve saved yourself the trouble. Delivery will take forever, and the poor kid is probably starving already.”

“Well fine, more for me,” he said, stuffing a handful of chips into his bitter, smirking mouth to hide the fact that all he wanted to do was cry. Perhaps there would come a day when he wouldn’t disappoint her. “I guess you can eat lettuce and cottage cheese, or my bruised ego, whichever has fewer carbs and more fiber.”

She frowned. “You don’t have to be a dick about it, you know. It’s not like I’m getting any younger, 30 is only a few years off for me and I have to be mindful of my health, especially if I’m going to continue working in the field. Diabetes runs on mum’s side of the family. Not all of can have superior half-Time Lord biology. I swear, you could just mainline marmalade and not gain a pound, it’s not even fair. I’d kill to have a metabolism like yours, but I actually have to work at being healthy.”

Immediately, he felt bad for copping an attitude with her, although the idea of 30 being old was beyond laughable to him. He was sure she had probably mentioned her diet before, but it was just one more thing he either hadn’t been paying close enough attention to or forgotten entirely. “I’m sorry, I know you mentioned you were dieting but it entirely slipped my sieve of a mind. Do you want me to run back out? I’ve still got my shoes and jacket on, it’s not a problem.”

She sighed and reached into her pocket for her mobile as she turned to go back into the kitchen. “Forget it, I’ll just call for takeaway. If Pru’s hungry in the meantime we’ve still got some fresh fruit hanging about. Hopefully she eats fruit, I know she’s vegetarian but when I was her age all my vegetarian friends ate were crisps and shit.”

“Goddamnit,” he cursed under his breath, stuffing another handful of chips in his mouth. Honestly, they were half-cold and greasy and not that good, so perhaps it was for the better. It was a sad day when not even chips could get him back on Rose’s good side. Was this it then? Was this the best he could hope for for the rest of his mundane human life? The thought that he could fix a time machine or save a planet but barely navigate human relationships was almost as depressing as thinking about the date of Gallifrey.

He really couldn’t do anything right, could he?

* * * * *

“Rose, why did you want to foster a child?” the Doctor asked, laying his open book face down on his lap.

Rose glanced up from whatever she was doing on her mobile, probably apathetically scrolling Facebook or Instagram. “You know why, we talked about it before we agreed to do it. It was an emergency, I had applied to the foster care program before you even moved in with me, and it just seemed like a nice thing to do, y’know? Give back to the community and all that. Besides, it’s good press for the Vitex heiress to do something charitable, people don’t have much faith in Pete after his supposedly cyberized wife and formerly unmentioned daughter just magically appeared.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “Well yeah, of course it is, it’s a very nice thing to do, a very difficult one as well. But you could’ve volunteered at a soup kitchen or joined Big Brothers Big Sisters, and I know you don’t care about keeping up appearances for the press. Why have us foster a miscreant teenager? Why not something, I don’t know...a little less stressful, dramatic, and disruptive to our everyday lives?”

She sighed. “Is this line of questioning leading somewhere? Because I sense that it is and if that’s the case, please just get to the point.”

“Fine,” he said, taking his glasses off and folding them closed before setting them on the nightstand. “Do you love me Rose?”

She stared back at him as though he’d asked her if she preferred her Slitheen shank slow roasted or grilled. “What?”

“Do you love me?” he repeated, and the feeling in his chest was like a black hole had opened up somewhere in the vicinity of his stupid single heart. Maybe one had, it wasn’t like he had all the senses to even tell anymore. He’d always had a raging case of impostor syndrome, but it had only gotten worse when he’d grown out of hand from a jar rejuvenated by Donna Noble’s human DNA.

“What the hell kind of question is that? What, you honestly think I don’t love you?” she asked, her tone equal parts incredulous and insulted. “I just let you hang about my flat and eat my food because I secretly hate you or something?”

“I think you tolerate me, and that’s not quite the same thing as love now is it?” he said, hating himself for saying it; even as the words passed his lips they felt like a betrayal to everything he and Rose had been through together over the years. “I think you love the Doctor, but not me, the memory of the one traveling another universe in an old blue box. Because you haven’t said those three little words to me since that day on Bad Wolf Bay either. And it was only after you bothered pointing it out to me today that I hadn’t said it that I thought about it and realized you hadn’t said it either, not really. And well, I’m a big outer space dunce who clearly fails at human romantic relationships and relationships in general, but you? What’s your excuse? Unless you don’t really love me, and whatever the hell it is we’re doing here is just some hellish existentialist version of playing house. Because I know I’m not the man you wanted, just the one you got stuck with. And I guess on some level you probably think that I’d rather be somewhere in the TARDIS than here with you but that couldn’t be further from the truth. You’re right next to me in the bed that we share, but there might as well be a white wall in between us because that’s how far away you feel sometimes and it fucking kills me because if I can’t even make you happy than what’s the bloody point of my existence at all? Why did he leave me here with you if I can’t even do that?”

She looked down and shook her head, her shoulders following suit as sobs wracked her body. “Jesus. Jesus Christ, I’m so sorry. I had no idea I was making you feel that way, I wasn’t even trying to. I’m sorry, I don’t even know what to say, I’m an arsehole. Of course I love you, you git, I love you so much. It’s him I hate, the Doctor, the one flying around in that blue box, completely oblivious to the destruction he left in his wake. I hate him for abandoning me again with no goodbye after I spent years trying to get back to him. I hate him for treating you like you were somehow defective for killing the Daleks and saving our lives, like you aren’t the same goddamn person and as though he wouldn’t have done the same bloody thing if you hadn’t been there to do it for him. I hate him for just leaving us to figure all this shit out on our own without every stopping to ask if it was what either one of us really wanted. I love you but I hate him and you have the same face and it’s so hard because I don’t know how to do this simple, normal life with you after doing all of time and space for so long. I wanted to foster a teenager because I thought that a little chaos might make things feel the way they used to between us and we’d be doing something good at the same time. It was a stupid, selfish idea, I don’t know what the hell I was thinking or why I thought we could handle this.”

“Well now, give us and yourself some credit. I can’t imagine we’ll do a worse job with Pru than her own parents did,” he offered lamely, patting her hand. It was easier to acknowledge her fears about being an adequate foster parent than the more complicated feelings of resentment she apparently had been and still was harboring for his other self. Figures the stupid git wasn’t even in the same universe and was still managing to cause them both problems. It hardly seemed fair.

Rose dabbed at her eyes and chuckled sardonically. “I certainly hope we do a better job than her parents, that’s not setting the bar very high, Doctor.”

“Oooo, I’ve graduated from John back to the Doctor, that’s exciting. I was beginning to get concerned you were annoyed with me,” he said, waggling his eyebrows. “Although let’s face it, like you were gonna be able to stay angry at this handsome face for very long anyway.”

“Shut up,” she laughed, elbowing him in the ribs.

He smirked and leaned back against the pillows, arms crossed. “Make me.”

She flung the coverlet back and moved to straddle him, and his heart started racing. One finger pressed briefly against his lips before her petal-soft mouth moved to replace it. “Peace! I will stop your mouth,” she murmured against his lips.

“You know I love it when you recite Shakespeare to me,” he sighed, relaxing into the kiss and wrapping his arms tighter around her. It had been several weeks since they’d last been intimate, and the blood coursing through his body right now felt like it was in a simmering tea kettle just shy of whistling its readiness. Judging from how warm Rose’s bare thighs felt pressed against his own, the feeling was mutual. As he was in only his pants and she was wearing an oversized t-shirt as pajamas, there was nothing between them but a tauntingly thin layer of silk and two very slightly thicker layers of cotton. But it was still not enough, not when he wanted to bury his face in her generous cleavage and roll his tongue around the candy-pink nubs of her nipples, which he could feel chafing against his chest through the fabric of her shirt. She wasn’t wearing a bra, and the tantalizing contrast of soft flesh and stiff peaks simultaneously pressing against him was enough to drive him mad. In his pants his cock jerked and twitched, a dormant creature stirring to life after an entirely too long period of hibernation. That was the downside (or perhaps it was the upside) of this human body-it didn’t require much stimulation to elicit a hormonal response, he was already hard enough to split a cord of wood. Perhaps that was why humans referred to it as being “turned on”, it really did seem like flipping a switch sometimes and he still had yet to learn to control it the way he’d been able to in his full Time Lord form.

“Why are we still wearing clothes?” he groaned, his fingers curling around the waistband of her knickers and pulling insistently.

“Why are you still talking?” she asked, tugging her t-shirt over her head and rewarding him with a spectacular view of her pert (and frankly flawless) breasts. “Especially when there are much better things you could be doing with that non-stop gob of yours.”

He cupped her breasts, squeezing gently, and regarded her with as serious an expression as he could muster under the circumstances. “Not while you’ve still got your knickers on I can’t. I know I’m a very cunning linguist and all, but that could be a challenge even for someone with my level of expertise.”

She cocked her head and smiled coyly. “Well I guess you’d better figure out how to take them off then.”

“Oh, I’ve got a few ideas,” he growled, shoving her none too gently down onto the mattress and pinning her there with his knees on either side of her hips. It took every ounce of willpower he had not to become distracted by the warmth and close proximity of her parts to his own, so he chose to focus instead on the way her hair spilled like golden silk over the edge of the bed and how the warm, dim light from the lamp made her eyes look like the last sip of good bourbon in a bottle. He wanted to tell her how beautiful she was, but she’d already told him to stop talking. He’d have to show her without words instead.

Softly, he caressed her cheek, letting his thumb stroke gently at the corner of her lips before tracing their curve with his fingers. She nipped playfully at him, licking the tip of his index finger before sucking it into her mouth and rolling her tongue around it in a manner that was positively lascivious. “You trying to tell me something?” he asked, cocking an eyebrow. “I thought I was supposed to be the one using my mouth here.”

She released his finger with a wet pop. “I guess you better get to it then, as you can tell I’m getting a bit wet and impatient.”

He shook his head, letting his hands drift down to fondle her breasts. Pinching her nipples, he rolled them between his fingers until they were sufficiently hard and standing upright. “So demanding,” he chastised, clucking his tongue at her.

“Yeah, but you like it,” she replied, bucking her hips underneath him.

“Patience, Rose. First the appetizer, then the main course,” he chided, sliding down her body so that his face was level with her navel. He hooked his fingers under the waistband of her knickers, gripped a piece of the fabric in his teeth, and pulled them down over her hips, pausing only to look up and check that she was thoroughly impressed with how smoothly he’d managed to pull that off, literally. Knickers discarded on the floor by the bed, he gripped her thighs and buried his face between them. Nudging between her folds with his tongue, he discovered she hadn’t been exaggerating about how aroused she was. He was shite at a lot of typically human things, but sex was definitely not one of them. A flush of pride warmed his chest and his cock-if nothing else, he at least knew how to push all of Rose Tyler’s buttons. If psychology didn’t pan out for him, maybe he could have a backup career as a saucy male escort. Traveling (and occasionally shagging) his way across time and space, he’d picked up a trick or two that worked on just about any species, humanoid or not.

The sensation of nails scraping his scalp as Rose tugged insistently on his hair reminded him not to lose focus on the task at hand. Plunging two fingers inside of her, he thrust them in and out and applied even more pressure with his tongue until he felt the telltale fluttering of muscles that signaled his work was almost done. When she wrapped her legs around his head and started grinding against his face, all he could do was smile and grip her bum as tightly as possible. He didn’t stop licking and suckling til her legs relaxed and her thighs fell open on the bed.

“I’m beginning to think getting me off isn’t even a challenge for you,” she said, stretching languidly.

“A challenge, no,” he smirked, laying his cheek against her thigh. “A pleasure? Most definitely. Did you want to…?”

She sat up on her elbows. “Ah...yeah. I mean, we can if you want. It’s just...well, I’ve stopped my birth control, for now. I had the implant, and it was due to be replaced last month, but they last for three years and I wasn’t really sure what would be going on with us, so I didn’t have them put a new one in. Figured we should talk about it first, I guess.”

“Oh,” he said, taken aback. “Well...I guess now is as good a time as any.”

“Not really,” she sighed. “I should’ve told you when I had it taken out, but this is the first time we’ve done this in awhile and well...yeah. Sorry for not saying something sooner.”

“That’s kinda playing with fire, isn’t it? Getting rid of your birth control and not telling me til now,” he said, trying to keep his tone as neutral as possible. He had feelings about it alright, big, complicated feelings. But evidently, so did she. Things had been so awkward and strained between them that he wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d signed up to get her tubes tied without saying thing one to him about it. But she’d gone and done the opposite, and he wasn’t sure what to make of that. Was she actually entertaining the idea of having a baby with his useless half-human self? Didn’t humans usually get married before they had babies? What the bloody hell was going on?

“We don’t even know if we’re genetically compatible or not,” she pointed out.

“Yes well having unprotected sex would be one way of finding that out,” he said flatly.

“We haven’t had unprotected sex since I had the implant out because we haven’t been having sex at all!” she shot back.

“Don’t get angry with me, it’s not like I’m unwilling. You know I’ll do whatever you want, that’s always how it’s been, even before. You just bat your eyelashes and get what you want, even if I know it’s a horrible idea, like going back in time to the day your father died. You want me to put a baby in you and get married? Fine, let’s do it,” he shrugged, trying to shove the Oncoming Storm back into the darkest part of himself. “Doesn’t make a difference to me either way, to be honest.”

She crossed her arms and turned her head, but not before he saw her lower lip begin to tremble, the way it always did right before she started to cry. “You really don’t care one way or the other if we ever get married and have children? I want you to do those things because you want to do them, not just because you think that’s what I want. It’s like you have no opinion about this at all, not really. I always have to make all the decisions, and I never know what you’re even thinking half the time because you never bother telling me what’s going through that giant outer space head of yours. Why is it always on me to make these high, life changing decisions for both of us? It’s like you’re completely unwilling to be responsible for bloody anything, because if it’s my idea and it fails then it’s all on me.”

Exasperated, he collapsed back against the bed. “You used to get angry with me for peeking in your head without permission, now you’re apparently irritated because I’m not a bloody mind reader anymore. Brilliant, that’s just brilliant. We’ve got this whole relationship thing nailed, haven’t we? Rose, I only want those things if you want them just as much as I do. We’re on the same page, can’t you see that? But you never tell me anything anymore either, so I have no idea what you’re thinking. Half the time I think you like me, half the time I think you secretly hate me and I’m going to be out on my arse any day now. Why would I think you’d be interested in anything more serious than what we already have? Earlier you said we were basically nothing more than friends with benefits. I mean...are you even interested in all that? Marriage and children? With me?”

“I don’t know,” she said, sounding tired. “I thought I was...but look at us. We fight all the bloody time. Being together like this...I don’t think it’s quite what either one of us could’ve imagined. Our relationship before was always...I dunno, different. But this? This is...well, typical stupid human shit. I never thought we’d be susceptible to the same silly pitfalls normal couples face, but here we are. I can’t tell if you’re too human or not human enough.”

“Things may have been different, but so were we. And we’ve always had communication issues, even before, so I’m not sure why you think that’d change just because I’m more human now. I know that I’m bad at expressing my feelings, I always have been. My people were stoic and stodgy, and even if we did have feelings, we were taught to suppress them so we wouldn’t appear weak to our peers or enemies. My entire life I think the only time my father hugged me was when I graduated the Prydonian Academy. Anger was one of the only emotions that was ‘safe’ to express, and even then it was frowned upon to let your frustration get the better of you. I think I’ve gotten better with that, at least a little bit, but there’s still a learning curve when you spent the first several hundred years of your life pretending that nothing anyone ever said or did hurt or impacted you in any way. These months since the Metacrisis and the Crucible have been some of the most difficult of my life, and that’s saying something given how long I existed prior to being recreated as a human from a hand in a jar. I’m trying to discover who I am as a human being without losing sight of who and what I was as a Time Lord. I’m not trying to make excuses, but I don’t think you can fully appreciate just how incredibly difficult it’s been for me,” he confessed. “I’m trying to hold onto those unique things that made you love me as a Time Lord in the first place while also becoming a human worthy and deserving of being loved by you.”

She sprang up from the bed and wrapped her arms tightly around his neck, catching him off guard. “You already are worthy and deserving of love, Doctor. I’m so sorry if I’ve done anything to make you believe otherwise. You don’t have to be exactly like your other self to win my affection. In fact, if you were exactly the same as before, I don’t know that we’d have half a shot at being a couple. I know you’re trying your best and I do see you changing, I’m sorry I haven’t done a better job of acknowledging the positive strides you’ve made because I got too caught up focusing on the negative. I know this has been a hard adjustment for both of us, not just me, we’ve never had to do domestics like this before and we used to joke about being terrified of carpets and mortgages. We’ve really got to try and do better at communicating with each other.”

“You think so?” he asked, closing his eyes and inhaling the familiar and comforting aroma of honeysuckle wafting from her hair.

“You’re the psychologist, Doctor, you tell me,” she replied, pulling back to look at him. “What do you think we could do differently to make things better?”

“I’m not really a psychologist, not technically,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck uncomfortably. “I’m pretending at that, just like I’m pretending at being human. But I think you’re right...we need to learn to talk to each other more, be honest about what we’re thinking instead of just expecting the other one to know somehow and getting angry when they don’t. That’s what normal human couples do, right? Maybe we both could stand to learn a thing or two from normal humans for once instead of acting like we’re above it all.”

She snorted. “Normal. As if we could ever come close to that. But alright, I’m willing to try for ‘normal’, if you are. At least when it comes to our expectations for each other in this relationship, I think that’s fair.”

“I know I won’t be able to do it without you. I love you,” he said sincerely. “So now what?”

“Now?” she said, gripping him through his pants. “Now I think is the point where normal humans would have makeup sex. Maybe we could start there, since we’re both already mostly naked.”

He squeezed his eyes shut as all his blood rushed back below his waist. “Not that I’m unwilling, but what about your birth control?”

“What about it?” she asked coyly, slipping her hand inside his pants and stroking his quickly stiffening length.

“You might get pregnant,” he pointed out, gritting his teeth. It was almost embarrassing how easy it was for her to get him all riled up and aroused when he didn’t have the benefit of hormonal dampeners.

“I might, I might not. It’s a risk I think I’m willing to take, if you are. Besides, I track my cycle and I know I’m not ovulating, it’ll probably be fine,” she purred, gripping him tighter. “If you’re that worried about it, I can get Plan B from the chemist tomorrow. It may be irresponsible...but I’m really horny right now, you’re hard as a rock, and I need you inside me. The appetizer course was great but I’m still hungry, if you catch my drift.”

“Fuck, shit, okay,” he panted, batting her hand away so he could struggle out of his pants. The rational part of him knew it really was irresponsible of them, especially given everything else going on, but the very hormonal human part of him was currently willing to ignore the rational part in favor of quenching the fire burning in his loins. He shoved Rose back down against the mattress, reached in between them, and guided himself to her still slick entrance. With a gasp of relief, he pushed inside of her and began to thrust like his life depended on it. It really was criminal that they didn’t shag more often, the two of them fit together perfectly, like corresponding puzzle pieces that had always been seeking one another. Joined together like this, he could almost feel her solitary heart pumping in time with his own and her eyes now were like the smouldering wood on a winter fire, watching him intently and reflecting back his own passion. There was no use for words when their bodies could communicate so much more effectively joined like this. It was no small wonder so many humans conflated the carnal pleasures of sex with romantic love, hers was an altar he would happily worship at time and time again, each adoring plunge into her silken warmth a devotion to the only golden goddess he had ever truly needed or believed in. It was only when he felt the delicious, needling pain of her fingernails digging into his shoulders and her walls clenching tightly around his cock that he gave himself the permission to release, spilling everything that had been pent up inside of her. Collapsing against her, he buried his face against the side of her neck and pressed a gentle kiss to her skin, tasting sweat and salt and love and life. 

“I love you,” he whispered again, not caring one bit how much of a cliche it might seem at a time like this. It was the absolute truth and always had been and he finally wasn’t afraid to say it.

“I love you too,” she replied, wrapping her arms loosely around him.

They fell asleep like that, tangled together on top of the covers, and it was the first decent night’s rest either one of them had gotten in a very long time.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pru seemed dissatisfied by his answer. “But you love her, right? Rose?”
> 
> “More than the moon, the sun, and the stars,” he answered resolutely. “More than anything and everything. She’s my entire world. Nothing would make me happier than to call her my wife.”
> 
> “So then why not ask her to marry you?” Pru asked, confused.
> 
> He gritted his teeth and finished cleaning her arm. “Like I said, it’s complicated. I don’t even know if that’s what she wants, not for sure. You can love someone and not want to marry them. And as it is, I’m still not entirely certain that she doesn’t deserve a much better man than myself.”

It wasn’t like either one of them had expected being a foster parent would be easy, but it had been two weeks since Pru had come to live with them and it seemed like every day presented a new and different set of unanticipated challenges. The teenager had been more than a little unhappy when they’d pulled her from her old school to move her to one closer to where they lived-she’d been reluctant to leave behind the few friends she had there, in spite of the fact that they’d told her her friends were welcome to come visit or stay over any time she liked. They’d bought her a new phone, new rucksack, new clothes, and just about anything else they imagined a girl her age could possibly want for or need, but nothing seemed to make a difference, she was just as Sully and petulant as she had been on day one. Pru was still miserable, and she’d already spent several afternoons in detention and gotten in two fights with two different girls who had picked on her from coming from the poor side of town. The school administrators were unhappy, Pru was unhappy, and they weren’t feeling much better about it themselves. Now she’d locked herself in her bedroom and was refusing to come out and go to school and it was more than either he or Rose could bear when tensions were already running so high.

“I know she needs her privacy, but if this keeps up we’re going to have to take the lock off her door,” he lamented, pacing the hallway outside the teenager’s room. “It’s lucky your father is the director, this is the third time this week we’re both going to be late to work because of this kid, anyone else and we’d already be getting points and write ups.”

“It’s only been a few weeks Doctor, she’s still adjusting. She’s been through a lot, it’s going to take time, as frustrating as this is for both of us, just try and imagine how she feels losing her mother and having her whole life uprooted all in one go,” Rose said gently. “Don’t get angry at her, she’s just a girl. Even you were a kid once, your Lordship. I’m sure your teenage years were very interesting.”

“Yeah, and by the time I was her age I’d already looked into the time vortex and built my own antikythera mechanism. Are modern schools really that awful?” he grumbled, jamming his hands into his pockets. “They don’t even teach real maths, how bad could it be?”

Rose rolled her eyes at him. “It’s not the course material that’s the problem and you know it. She feels like an outsider there. Teenage girls can be cruel, and so can the boys, for that matter. It’s hard being the new kid, especially when everyone knows exactly why she ended up where she did. She had the worst tragedy of her short life trotted out in public for the consumption of the people. We just need to give it time. Unless you want to take off work to home school her, our options are somewhat limited.”

“Why would I be the one homeschooling her?” he asked, resisting the impulse to point out that all this had been Rose’s idea in the first place.

“Because you’re a lot smarter and far more qualified to be a teacher than I am,” she replied, sounding defeated.

He was hard pressed to argue that point with her, but he hated hearing her put herself down, even second hand. “You’re plenty smart too, you know. Don’t sell yourself short. If you’d had a chance to go to the Academy, I’m sure your pedagogical acumen would far exceed my own. At the very least, you’ve got loads more patience than I do, I get antsy waiting the 75 seconds for the Keurig to brew a cup of coffee.”

“I’m not sure what pedagogical acumen is, but thanks, I think,” she said, looking over her shoulder at him. She raised her fist and gently knocked on the door again. “Prudence? C’mon sweetheart, the Doc-erm, John and I really need to leave for work soon. I’ve got a project I’m working on and he has patients waiting and we can’t leave you here by yourself.”

“Go away!” Pru shouted from the other side of the door. “I’m not going to that stupid rich bitch school and you can’t bloody well make me! I wanna go back to Acton with my friends! No one there would’ve made fun of me because my mother had the nerve to get murdered!”

“Well you can’t go back to Acton because you don’t live around there anymore, so there’s no point in fighting about it,” Rose asserted, the look on her face telling that even her seemingly infinite patience was beginning to wear thin. “It’s too far away from here, and it’s a terrible school anyway, you’ll learn a lot more at Coal Hill, and it’ll look a lot better on university applications, if you decide to go. Besides, if you keep avoiding them, you let the bullies win. You’re better than that.”

“I don’t care!” Pru spat vehemently. “All my friends are at Acton, and kids like me don’t go to fucking university anyway!”

Rose gave an exasperated shrug. “Now what?” she whispered to him. “This is going absolutely nowhere. I don’t know what to do.”

He tapped his chin with his finger; he was beginning to formulate a plan. “You still got that guitar Pete gave you?”

“Uh, yeah. Why, you gonna play Kumbaya?” she asked sarcastically.

“Just bring it to me, I’ve got an idea,” he instructed, sitting in the lotus position on the carpet with his back against Pru’s door.

Mystified, Rose went to her office to retrieve the instrument, returning a few moments later to carefully pass it off to him. “What are you gonna do?”

Carefully, he took the guitar from her and began to tune it. “It’s been quite awhile since I played one of these. Promise you won’t make fun of me,” he said wryly, his fingers stumbling awkwardly over the strings before beginning to pick out an old but familiar melody. Taking a deep breath he began to sing, surprising even himself with the pleasantly mellow timbre of his voice. “Dear Prudence, won’t you come out to play? Dear Prudence, greet the brand new day. The sun is up, the sky is blue. It’s beautiful, and so are you. Dear Prudence, won’t you come out to play?”

The awed look on Rose’s face was gratifying enough, but then she began to sing along with him on the second verse and he felt his heart melting. “Dear Prudence, open up your eyes. Dear Prudence, see the sunny skies. The wind is low, the birds will sing. That you are part of everything. Dear Prudence, won’t you open up your eyes? Look around round, look around round round, look around…”

At that point the door flung open, sending him sprawling backwards into the room. Pru stood over him, her eyes red and face splotchy from crying. “For the love of god, please cut the Across the Universe routine, I can’t bloody take it anymore. It’s lame as hell.”

“Does that mean you’re going to school?” he asked hopefully, sitting up.

She rolled her eyes. “Yes, but only because that’s less painful than the second-hand embarrassment I was getting from listening to you two carry on out here.”

Grinning, he reached across the hall and high fived Rose. It was a small victory, but a victory nonetheless.

* * * * *  
The flat was too quiet. Rose was out for lunch with Jake, and he’d been left in charge of both puppy and foster child, which was only a mildly terrifying level of responsibility for him. Astro was asleep though, and he’d very nearly singed his favorite eyebrow trying to make modifications to the toaster, so he was now in search of something only slightly less dangerous to do.

“Pru?” he called, rapping his knuckles against her door. He knew she was home, but he hadn’t seen or heard a peep from her in hours, aside from the nearly constant soundtrack of Melancholy Teen Angst Music coming from her room. He was no expert on human children but this was, in his not-so-humble opinion, generally a bad sign. Silence in children usually meant they were getting into trouble, at least that had been the case with his own, and himself, for that matter. When he didn’t get an answer, he turned the knob and began to open the door. “Pru...you okay?”

Pru, who was sitting at her desk, whipped her head around to look at him. “Hey! Haven’t you heard of knocking?”

“I did knock…” he started to reply, but then he saw the needle in her hand and the blotches of blood and ink on her arm. “What the hell are you doing?!”

“Nothing,” she replied, about as convincing as a toddler with their hand stuck in the cookie jar. The needle dropped from between her fingers and onto the desk before rolling onto the floor.

“It sure as hell doesn’t look like nothing,” he said, stomping over and grabbing her arm to examine it. From the looks of it, she had been in the process of giving herself a stick and poke tattoo, and not a very good one, either. “Are you mad? What on Earth would possess you to do something so foolish?”

Her lips pursed and her eyebrows knit together in a scowl that would’ve made the bravest man feel uncomfortable, but then her lips began to tremble as tears squeezed out of the corners of her eyes. “I’m giving myself a lily tattoo, for my mum. She loved lilies. I know she was a shitty mum, but she was the only one I had and I just wanted something to remember her by.”

“The only thing you’re going to give yourself doing that is blood poisoning,” he scolded, but there was no anger in his tone, only weariness. “A shitty at home tattoo is no way to memorialize your mother, it’s going to end up healing and looking terrible, and it’ll probably end up getting infected and scarring up your arm, too. Is that really how you want to remember your mother? How she’d want you to remember her?”

Pru had the good sense to look ashamed. “No,” she said softly, the tears flowing freely now.

“C’mon, I’ve got a first aid kit in the bathroom, we can get this cleaned up and...if you really want, I suppose I could take you to a legitimate tattoo parlor,” he offered, knowing even as he said it that it was probably a bad idea, but wanting desperately to make a gesture to hopefully make Pru feel a little bit better and also show her that he wasn’t the old and unhip enemy in this equation.

“Really?” she asked, her mouth forming an ‘o’ of disbelief. “You’d really let me do that?”

He sighed. “I suppose. It is almost your birthday, after all. If that’s really what you want…”

The squeal she let out was as eardrum piercing as the mating call of a young Chayari. “Oh my god, yes. Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

“Well alright then,” he said gruffly. “Let’s get you cleaned up and get out of here, before I change my mind or Rose gets home, whichever comes first. People are always telling me I’m a bad influence, I might as well act the part.”

Pru sat on the edge of the sink while he gently swabbed her arm with alcohol pads. “You’re lucky,” he admonished. “You didn’t go deep enough with the needle to hit any muscle or tendons, these are just superficial puncture wounds, so there hopefully won’t be much noticeable scarring. I’m going to flush them with hot soap and water though, just in case. That should hopefully draw out any ink you did manage to get under the skin.”

“Thanks,” she said quietly. “Guess I lucked out, getting a wealthy heiress and a doctor as foster parents.”

“I don’t know that luck had much to do with it,” he answered, rinsing her arm with hot water. “Rose was the one who applied to the foster program, but ultimately I think they decided to place you with us because I’m a psychologist. I don’t feel like that’s really given me any advantage in helping you..but what do I know? I don’t think I understand humans any better than the next bloke.”

“So am I just a practice kid until you two finally get married and squeeze out one of your own?” she asked, her tone entirely too blase for such a loaded question.

“Certainly not,” he said, mildly offended. “What would give you an idea like that?”

“Wouldn’t be the first time it happened to me. I had these super religious foster parents once, the Bishops. They couldn’t have kids of their own, or so they thought. They fostered me for almost a year when I was eleven and my mum just upped and disappeared, but then Mrs. Bishop miraculously got pregnant and I miraculously had to be transferred to a different foster home shortly after they found out. Funny how that works, innit?” she said sarcastically.

“Perhaps they felt overwhelmed,” he said, at a loss for words. He could only imagine how it would feel to be a child in that sort of situation. “I promise you though, it’s not like that with me and Rose.”

“What is it like then?” she asked.

Uncomfortable with the turn the conversation was taking, he continued gently patting her arm dry with a clean towel. “How d’you mean?”

“Rich heiress, handsome doctor, seems like a match made in heaven. How come you two aren’t married and making babies already? Just seems weird, that’s all,” she commented off handedly. “I mean, she’s rich enough that she could afford fertility treatments if that were the issue. Seems weird to foster a kid together when you aren’t even married.”

“It’s complicated,” he answered. “Besides, you don’t need to be married to be in a committed relationship or have children. It’s just a silly little piece of paper, it doesn’t prove anything. True marriage is a bond that happens in the heart and the mind, not in a church or a judge’s chambers, contrary to popular belief. Also, I’m not exactly in a rush to sign up for having Jackie Tyler as my mother-in-law, but I’ll deny having ever said that to the grave so don’t bother repeating it.”

“You think Rose feels the same way?” Pru asked slyly. “That legal marriage is all show, no substance?”

“I guess you’d have to ask her that,” he said sullenly, feeling like he’d just walked into a trap that should’ve been obvious from a mile away. “But that’s not exactly what I said, either. Legal marriage serves its own purposes, all I meant was that it’s not necessary as proof of love or commitment, and certainly not a requirement of having children together, either.”

Pru seemed dissatisfied by his answer. “But you love her, right? Rose?”

“More than the moon, the sun, and the stars,” he answered resolutely. “More than anything and everything. She’s my entire world. Nothing would make me happier than to call her my wife.”

“So then why not ask her to marry you?” Pru asked, confused.

He gritted his teeth and finished cleaning her arm. “Like I said, it’s complicated. I don’t even know if that’s what she wants, not for sure. You can love someone and not want to marry them. And as it is, I’m still not entirely certain that she doesn’t deserve a much better man than myself.”

“Hmmm,” Pru mused, examining her arm. “Because I’m pretty sure she wants to marry you. I overheard her on the phone with someone the other day, saying she sorta hoped you were gonna propose for her birthday. Seems very complicated. But then again, what do I know? I’m just a silly teenage girl, after all, I know nothing of these complicated adult affairs.”

“You’ve got a sass mouth, young lady,” he frowned. “She really said that though?”

“Sure did,” Pru replied, hopping off the counter. “Can we go now? Before you change your mind or Rose comes back? And can I drive?”

He shook his head, his mind swimming in mixed emotions as he tried to process what Pru had just told him. Marriage had come up in several of his recent arguments with Rose, but not once had she ever explicitly said that she wanted to get married. Who would she have said that to? Probably Jake, if he had to guess, or maybe even her mum, but that seemed a little less likely given that mentioning marriage to Jackie Tyler was akin to opening Pandora’s Box, if Pandora’s Box were filled with fabric swatches, flowers, and baby name books. Jackie had had his and Rose’s future planned out practically from the moment they’d set foot on the zeppelin back to England from Darlig Ulv Stranden. Still, even if it had been Jackie she’d been talking to about it, why wouldn’t she have just said something to him?

Pru waved a hand in front of his face. “Earth to John. Hello?”

“Yeah, we’re going,” he answered. “But I’m definitely driving. I don’t need one extra thing on the list of reasons why Rose is going to kill me later. If anyone’s going to crash a car today, it’ll bloody well be me, thank you very much.”

* * * * *

The Doctor glanced over at Pru, who was sitting in the passenger seat, texting intently with an uncharacteristically sunny grin on her face. “Not that I’m not happy to see you smiling for a change, but what’s the big grin for? Are you that excited about the tattoo?”

Her tongue poked between her teeth in a gesture that was endearingly reminiscent of Rose. “I’ve got a date for Friday. Alex is taking me out to the Adventure Bar for my birthday.”

His brow creased, but he kept driving. “Not to be that guy, but as your legal guardian I hope you’ve got a date at the family planning clinic as well then.”

Pru rolled her eyes, and slid her mobile back into her bag. “I’m not gonna get pregnant.”

“How could you possibly know that?” he asked. “It’s not bad to take precautions, you never know another person’s intentions. Better safe than sorry, especially at your age. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure and all that.”

“I know I’m not gonna get pregnant because Alex is a girl and we’re both lesbians,” she replied, just the one corner of her mouth creeping up as she gauged his reaction.

“Oh. Alright then,” he nodded sagely. “You’ve got me there. Still, the family clinic has free dental dams and other stuff, you may want to check it out anyway.”

“Eww okay, please don’t ever say dental dams out loud again. But you really don’t care that I’m a lesbian?” she asked, raising her impeccably sculpted eyebrows.

“Why would I?” he replied, perplexed.

“The last foster parents who found out I was gay made me write Bible verses til my fingers cramped up,” she answered, looking out the window. “They forced me to go to church, even when I was sick with the flu. I’m sure they would’ve sent me to conversion camp if I had stayed much longer, but that was around when she got pregnant and they decided I wasn’t worth the trouble or the Jesus points.”

The Doctor frowned. “Well give me their address and I can arrange to have some shit sent to them through the post. Intolerant arseholes.”

Pru still seemed incredulous. “You really don’t care?”

He scoffed. “Of course not. Pru, Rose and I just want the best for you. We want you to be happy, and we want you to feel comfortable being yourself. Sexuality is a part of who you are, it’s not a choice and it’s certainly not something you should be ashamed of or punished for. I’m sorry your other foster parents weren’t so understanding, but that’s nothing you have to worry about staying with Rose and me. I’m pansexual, you know, not that I ever talk about it, but I’ve had my fair share of boyfriends, girlfriends, and everything in between, before I met Rose and settled down. We both had our flaming youth, and I’ve never believed there was a point in trying to overly restrictive with teenagers, they just run off and steal TARD-errm cars and do all the things you didn’t want them doing anyway. I’d rather give you the freedom to experiment, within reason, and know that you’re safe while doing it.”

She sank back against her seat, an inscrutable expression on her face. “You’re not so bad, you know. For a boffin.”

“Oi!” he protested, the Noble part of him coming out. “I resent that remark, thank you very much.”

“Are you sure you don’t mean 'resemble’?”

“Oi!”

Parking outside the tattoo parlor was limited, but he managed to squeeze the Smart Car into a space that was probably borderline illegal, given how close to the fire zone it was. He was glad Rose wasn’t there to see him hit the kerb while attempting to parallel park, though he didn’t miss Pru’s subtle giggling behind her hand the second and third time the wheel hit the concrete. Parking had never been his strong suit, not even with the TARDIS.

“Rose is gonna be cool with you taking me to do this?” Pru asked doubtfully as they stood outside the shop, looking up at the flashing neon skull hanging in the window.

“I mean, aside from the fact that she’ll probably murder me, it should be fine,” he said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “Just promise you’ll speak warmly of me when I get turned into a vindaloo.”

“I’m nervous,” Pru admitted, tentatively reaching out to grab his hand.

“You’ll be fine,” he said reassuringly, pushing open the door. “It’s no more painful than a bee sting, I’m told. You aren’t allergic to bees, are you?”

She turned to look at him. “Wait, so you don’t have any tattoos?”

“Of course not,” he chuckled. “I’m a boffin, remember? Besides, I can’t think of anything I like enough that I’d want to have it permanently engraved on my flesh. Except maybe for bananas, I do love bananas. Always bring a banana to a party, Pru. Bananas are good.”

“What about Rose?” she asked. “You like her, don’t you? You should get a tattoo for her, like I’m getting one for my mum. It’d be romantic, I bet she’d be super impressed.”

He shook his head. “I don’t know about all that.”

“Aww c’mon! We could do it together, it’ll be fun. Like a foster father-foster daughter bonding thing. You do want to bond with me, right?” she challenged. “Unless you’re scared, of course.”

“I’m not scared of anything,” he bristled. “Well...except for Jackie Tyler’s cooking and infamous slap of doom, but I’ve yet to meet a man, woman, or Slitheen that wasn’t.”

“Prove it then,” the teenager said, gesturing to the walls of flash around them. “Pick something. It doesn’t need to be big, could just be something small. Guaranteed to up your coolness quotient by like, at least 50%. It’s very bad boy, and most women totally dig bad boys. I bet Rose does too, she seems like the sort who would.”

“She does dig bad boys and I already am one, but that’s besides the point. I’m not going to get a tattoo on a dare from a kid, that’d be ridiculously irresponsible,” he said, his eyes landing on a flash image of a pocket watch surrounded by flowers. “Although…”

“Do it, do it, do it,” Pru chanted excitedly.

He covered his face with his hand and groaned. As much as he’d like to say he was above doing something strictly for the novelty of it, he had very much become a human experience junkie in Pete’s World. Lacking the excitement of space/time travel, he’d been forced to find or invent new ways to get his thrills, and getting a tattoo was just one of the many human experiences he hadn’t yet had that held a certain allure; the buzz of the needle, the smell of the blood and ink and hot metal, the adrenaline rush of pain that was supposedly borderline pleasurable. If he were going to do something as frivolously human as get a tattoo, what better excuse than to lionize his love for his most favorite human, Rose Marion Tyler? 

“Fine,” he acquiesced. “I’m sure I’m going to end up regretting this, but alright, let’s do it. Foster father-foster daughter bonding tattoos, cause I’m completely sure that’s a thing normal, sane, and responsible people do with their teenage children.”

“I wouldn’t know about that,” Pru commented glibly. “I’ve never claimed to be sane or normal. Seems a bit boring, honestly.”

Either the laws were especially lax or the tattoo parlor couldn’t be buggered, but no one raised an eyebrow at Pru’s age. All that had been required for her to get a tattoo was a scan of both of their IDs and him signing a paper saying she had the permission of her legal guardian. After a barrage of questions about safety and cleanliness from him and assorted and sundry eyerolls from Pru, he somewhat reluctantly gave his final approval. Sitting in the waiting area, doodling Gallifreyan words on a notepad, he realized he had no idea how much these things usually cost. He hoped they took credit cards, he didn’t have any psychic paper to convince them he was an undercover health inspector and create a distraction.

“Hey man, Stormy said you were waiting to get a tattoo?”

The Doctor looked up, caught off guard by the man’s American accent. “Oh. Um yes, that’s me. First timer.”

The tattoo artist smiled. “Nice. I wish I could relive my first, there’s really nothing like it. I’m Brian, you are…?”

“John,” he replied, proud of himself for actually remembering to lead with his mundane human alias for once.

“Nice to meet you,” Brian replied. “Did you have an idea of what you wanted and where?”

“Actually,” the Doctor said, handing him his sheet of doodles. “I was hoping you could do something with this.”

The artist raised his eyebrows. “You drew this yourself?”

“Yeah,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. He always hated those moments where he wasn’t sure if he was supposed to feel flattered or embarrassed. “I was thinking my arm, or maybe my shoulder.”

“I like it,” Brian said, nodding. “Very romantic, very steampunk. It’d probably do better on your shoulder because of the size, but I can definitely work with this. Why don’t you come on back. Are you nervous?”

“No,” he lied. He was nervous, not so much about the pain, but Rose’s reaction. Would she think it a sweet gesture? Or would she just think it was silly? Was it bad boy enough? He knew she had a thing for bad boys, she’d admitted as much the few times she’d spoken about her past with Jimmy Stone, and she had taken up with him, after all. But Jimmy Stone was more bad boy in the sense of smoking cigarettes, driving a hot rod, and belonging to a rock band, not committing supposed genocide on Daleks. He was fairly confident that the other version of himself would’ve never done something like this-it was completely out of character. But every time he drew a breath on this Earth and felt his lungs expand in a chest that only held one heart, he realized that the differences between himself and the Time Lord Doctor were much greater than simple physiology. Every day he spent on this Earth, living a human life, he felt less and less like the person who had once piloted a TARDIS. It wasn’t quite dissociation, but there were moments where he simply did not know who he was, and this was one of them. If there were a more inconvenient time for an existential crisis than right as you were about to have something indelibly imprinted on your flesh…

“So. You’re not from around here,” he said, trying to distract himself.

Brian chuckled as he edited the Doctor’s drawing in a computer program. “What gave it away? No, I’m from Washington, the state, not the capital. My wife is from Brixton, though. We met when she was doing an exchange program in college, but we moved back here a few years ago to help take care of her parents. You want to take off your shirt please?”

“That must’ve been quite the adjustment,” he said, tugging his tshirt over his head. It was a struggle he certainly could relate to.

“It was, at first, but I got used to it. So much about England is completely different than what I grew up with, but there are enough things that are the same that I don’t feel too much like an alien. Some things are universal in any culture, you know what I mean? And besides, I know it makes my wife happy to be at home near her family, so it’s worth the discomfort sometimes,” Brian said with a shrug, removing the outline from the printer. “How’s this look?”

“Fine,” he replied, barely glancing at the drawing. He was much too distracted by the seeming parallels in their situations. “But...what do you do when you are uncomfortable? How do you cope with it? Don’t you ever miss your old life?”

Brian pulled on a pair of blue nitrile gloves and swabbed the back of his shoulder with an alcohol pad before laying the stencil transfer paper down on his skin. “Well, mostly I just remind myself that it’s temporary, but also I remind myself of all the times she put herself out of her own comfort zone to make me happy when will still lived in the US, and how much fun we’d end up having. Sometimes shit gets serious, but mostly it’s good. I mean, if I hadn’t gone out of my comfort zone, I’d have never gotten married in the first place. Never thought I was the type, it just seemed..I dunno, too static maybe, or too stable, too boring. But man was I wrong, moving here only proved it. I’m out of my comfort zone, so every day is a new adventure, and at the end of the day I get to go home to her and our amazing little boy. What could be better than that?”

“Not much, I suppose,” he murmured thoughtfully in reply. “You don’t miss home though?”

“Not really,” Brian replied, holding up the tattoo gun. “Seattle is kinda overrated, honestly, although it rains just about as much here as it did there. But yeah, in the absence of my friends and other family and the only life I’d ever known, she became my rock and my home, and that’s what I take comfort in. As long as I’m with her and our son, I am home, as far as I’m concerned.   
Home can be a person or a state of mind, it doesn’t always have to be a place, you know what I mean? Now try to stay as still as possible, unless you want a bunch of wavy lines on your back.”

“I think I’m picking up what you’re putting down,” he agreed, flinching as he felt the first sting of the needle connecting with his skin and the rush of endorphins that accompanied it. No wonder some people said getting tattoos was addictive, he could certainly understand the allure. He wondered how Prudence was faring with the young pink-haired woman who was doing her lily piece.

Two hours and 37 minutes of mostly casual small talk, £315, and a brief trip to the chemist’s for a tube of Aquaphor later, he and Pru were in the car on their way back to the flat. While she was bubbly and riding high with elation from getting her tattoo, he was more pensive, worrying simultaneously about what he’d say to Rose about where they’d been and mulling his conversation with Brian over in his mind. He’d left the tattoo parlor with fresh ink, a lighter wallet, and a whole new perspective on his situation with Rose. He’d always considered domestics to be boring, but perhaps they didn’t have to be. If they could no longer seek out adventure amongst the stars, perhaps it was high time he started creating his own here in Pete’s World, for both of their sakes. Pru’s birthday was in less than a week, Rose’s was a few days later, and he was already cultivating the beginnings of what he hoped wasn’t a totally harebrained scheme to surprise them both.


End file.
